In the end, the official word from the Ministry was that a Dark and evil wizard who claimed to be Voldemort (or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named as the newspaper put it) had gathered the escaped Death Eaters, and probably any others that had escaped arrest. The Ministry exhorted the people to be on their guard and provided suggestions for how the wizarding population could protect themselves. Since this was better than having the Ministry deny everything and pretend that everything was still fine and dandy, Alex went along with it. When other students questioned him, he emphasized the fact that the 'Dark wizard' said he was Voldemort returned to power and the other Death Eaters went along with it, with the implication being that they could just be crazy and deluded.
At first, Professor Dumbledore tried to argue that it really was Voldemort that had returned, but after several Order members pointed out that it wasn't helping and having the people be on guard against a group of evil wizards was better than having everyone think things were okay, he stopped. He then apologized to Minister Fudge and offered to his help in combating the 'Dark wizard that claimed to be Voldemort".
Meanwhile, Professor Karkaroff had disappeared. Nobody seemed to know where he had gone, and the Deputy Headmistress of Durmstrang (who was now Acting Headmistress) had been summoned to fill in for him for the time being. Since he had given names of other Death Eaters to avoid a term in Azkaban and Voldemort had returned, Alex suspected that Karkaroff had gone on the run.
Later in the week, Professor Snape assigned Alex a detention for supposedly messing up on a potion, but it was really an excuse to speak to him alone without causing any suspicion. As Alex helped prepare potion ingredients, Professor Snape told him about the meeting with Voldemort.
"As you suspected, the Dark Lord was quite upset with me over what had happened regarding Quirrell and the Stone. I did quite a bit groveling and was able to convince him that I had no idea that he was possessing Quirrell at the time, or I'd never have interfered. I think he wanted to Crucio me as punishment, but as he kept having coughing fits during his rant against my previous behavior, he never got around to it. He also brought up having to kill Lily Potter, and I pretended that I had long gotten over it and I had merely been infatuated with her good looks. After that, I told him that I had something to tell him, which would prove that I was still loyal to him, but it was for his ears only."
Professor Snape paused to transfer some flobberworm mucus into a jar, then continued, "The Dark Lord immediately dismissed everyone and put up a spell to prevent eavesdropping. I then informed him about your true identity, and said what you suggested to me to convince him to keep quiet about it until after he'd killed you and not tell the other Death Eaters. The Dark Lord was very pleased with the news and told me that he wasn't going to punish me for the Stone debacle after all. He then assigned me the task of brewing potions that would temporarily improve his health and dismissed me."
"I'm happy my suggestion worked, Professor," said Alex. "So you're just going to be Riddle's potion brewer now?"
"That was I primarily did for him in the war," Snape replied. "I rarely had to go out and fight or torture and kill people that he or the other Death Eaters captured. And if I was asked to participate, I usually was able to get out of it by claiming that the potions the Dark Lord asked for were in a delicate stage of brewing or some such thing and so needed to be tended or checked up on."
Alex nodded and the two didn't say anything more until Snape said that the 'detention' was over and Alex could leave.
The day of the second task arrived. Beth had been called away by a very grim-looking Professor McGonagall the night before, and as Beth hadn't returned, it confirmed Alex's hypothesis that his sister was the hostage he would have to rescue. The champions met down at the edge of the lake, while everyone else gathered in the nearby stands to watch. Alex held his wand in his right hand, the gillyweed that Granny Ilsa had sent him, and the knife that Sirius had given him for Christmas was attached to a loop of his swimming trunks. Among the judges sat Percy Weasley. Clearly he was filling in for Mr. Crouch again, until either Mr. Crouch recovered from his ordeal or someone else took his place. (The latter was more likely, since in all likelihood he would be 'sent to the Centaur Liaison Office' for having smuggled his son out of Azkaban.)
When Ludo Bagman announced the start, Alex waded out into the lake, stuffed the gillyweed in his mouth, and started chewing. Many of the audience began whispering to each other or snickering over the fact that he didn't seem to be doing anything. He ignored this, and once he felt the gillyweed take effect (which meant sprouting gills and having webbed hands and feet), he dove into the water.
The other champions gathered around him, and the four set off to find the merpeople and the hostages they would have to rescue. On the way, they ran into several grindylows. Three of them attacked Fleur, but Cedric and Alex were able to drive them off her before they could do any real damage, and Viktor used the fact that he had transfigured his upper body into a shark to drive off the rest. They continued on their way, and soon heard singing, specifically the lyrics, "An hour long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took..."
They swam faster and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy waterahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. The four swam on past the rock, following the mersong.
"... your time's half gone, so tarry not
Lest what you seek stays here to rot..."
A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Alex saw faces... faces that bore no resemblance at all to the pictures of merpeople he had seen, in both magical and muggle books...
The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at the four champions as they swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch them better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
The four sped on, staring around, and soon the dwellings became more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and Alex even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching them eagerly, and some were pointing at Alex's webbed hands and gills, talking behind their hands to one another. The champions sped around a corner and a very strange sight met their eyes.
A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Four people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson.
One of them was Beth, who was bound between Cho Chang and Cara. Alex's eyes widened when he saw his cousin, and he shot a look at Viktor, wondering if there was more to their relationship than he had thought, if Cara was the one that Viktor would 'sorely miss'.
The fourth person was a girl of about eight or nine. Judging from the clouds of silvery hair and Fleur's reaction to seeing her, the young girl was no doubt Fleur's sister. It looked as if Alex and Fleur would have to rescue their sisters, while Cedric and Viktor had to rescue their girlfriends.
Alex swam over to Beth, removed his knife from its attachment, and began sawing at the ropes binding her. Next to him, Cedric was doing the same thing to Cho, using his own knife. Viktor was using his shark mouth, but as it wasn't really suited for cutting anything smaller than a dolphin, it wasn't really working. Afraid that Viktor might accidentally bite Cara in half, Alex thumped him on the shoulder and lent him the knife. Viktor made a nod of thanks and returned the knife when he was done.
Fleur freed her sister, and the four champions, each holding on to their hostage, started swimming for the surface. It took some time, but they made it, with the merpeople swimming around them as they rose to the surface. Once they had broken the surface, the four hostages awoke from whatever enchanted sleep they had been in. Since the gillyweed hadn't worn off just yet, the other champions made sure all the hostages made it safely to shore, then hung around Alex for the five minutes it took for him to return to normal.
Once the champions made it to shore, Madam Pomfrey handed them blankets and gave them each a dose of Pepper-Up Potion. Meanwhile, Professor Dumbledore was crouched at the water's edge, deep in conversation with what looked like the chief merperson. He was making the same sort of screechy noises that the merpeople made when they were above water; clearly, Dumbledore could speak Mermish. Finally he straightened up, turned to his fellow judges, and said, "A conference before we give the marks, I think."
As the judges went into a huddle, Fleur thanked Cedric and Alex for rescuing her from the grindylows that attacked her, and thanked Viktor for driving off the rest. "We said that we were going to work together for the second and third tasks," Cedric said. "That includes fighting off any creature that attacks us."
"Still, your help was greatly appreciated," said Fleur.
Once the judges had finished their conference, Mr. Bagman got up to announce the marks, his voice magically magnified. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows... Since all of them worked together to reach the hostages, and then rescued them and returned to the surface all at the same time, one minute before the hour was up, most of the judges feel that this merits full marks for all the champions. Therefore, the champions each are awarded the full fifty points."
There was a great deal of cheering and applause from the audience.
"The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June," continued Bagman. "The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions."
Of course, the champions already knew that the final task was going to involve navigating a maze, since Crouch Jr had mentioned it during his initial questioning and Alex had then told the other champions. The four of them decided to meet up to plan what they were going to do in the final task in two weeks and then left to celebrate with their respective housemates or schoolmates.